Stronger Together
by SuperWhoLockedFaerie17
Summary: A collection of Bellarke one-shots. Cover art from http:/www.gramunion.com/ravenreyess.tumblr.com/150569879012
1. Lost & Found

**_A post s3e1 one-shot I wrote because I was desperate for a Bellarke reunion and, at the time, I was trying to write a sequel(ish) one-shot for each new episode that aired. Also, this is the first Bellarke/The 100 fic I wrote, so my characterization is a little shaky in here, at least to me . . ._**

Clarke stumbled along behind the bounty hunter and his companions that had captured her so easily two days ago. Her sides ached, and her hair hung in her face in a sweaty, berry-red mess. The sides of her mouth were raw from the tight gag they'd put on her, and her wrists chafed under the equally tighter strips of rawhide that bound them together.

She'd gotten herself into this mess; ignored her head and let her emotions get the best of her . . . again.

It was late afternoon when her captors stopped by a stream, and the tall one with crusted black face-paint trailing down his face shoved her to her knees at the bank.

"Wash up," he ordered.

Clarke glared at him, and he kicked her into the water. As the cold of the stream hit her skin, she gasped and the tall Grounder laughed, splashing in after her.

"No more hiding," he said, pushing her head under the swiftly flowing water and scrubbing at her hair.

Clarke flailed wildly as her lungs screamed for air. Water crawled up her nose and trickled down her throat. She screamed, helpless.

Just when she thought she was going to drown, up she came. She gasped and blinked, spinning uselessly in the Grounder's grasp.

He grinned at her and lifted a piece of her wet hair that was now back to its natural blonde color. The berry juice she'd used to disguise her bright, recognizable hair was washed out; only random bits remained a dull maroon color.

Suddenly, the Grounder's smile disappeared and he leaned in, flicking a knife out of his belt and pressing it against her throat. Clarke stiffened at the touch of the cold metal against her pulse.

"Hello, Wanheda," he said.

* * *

Wanheda, they called her: Commander of Death.

But if Clarke was the leader of death, then Bellamy was her second. Hers wasn't the only hand to pull the lever that killed Mount Weather.

Bellamy had tried to move on – past the mountain, past Clarke – and had even found a girl, Gena, who had become something to him. And then he heard about Wanheda, and Clarke came bursting into his life, shattering it apart like she always did.

Now here he was, in the middle of hostile Grounder territory because Clarke was in danger and he couldn't rest until he knew she was safe. He didn't have to think about rescuing her; it had become more than second nature. It was instinctual, something he couldn't explain, only act upon.

The four of them – Bellamy, Indra, Kane, Monty – had barely escaped one Ice Nation trap three days ago when the Grounders had cut down trees across their vehicle's path. There had been six against their four, and while Kane had tried the path of negotiation, this Grounder clan didn't want peace.

They wanted war.

After the brief, frenetic fight, Monty earning the only serious injury with a cut to his shoulder, it took the four of them a day to move the large tree out of their way.

They'd been driving straight ever since.

There weren't any more traps or ambushes, but Bellamy didn't drop his guard. If anything, the silence made him extra wary. Grounders were never silent for long.

"We should stop for the night," Kane said from the back of their vehicle. It was almost evening, that dim, misty time before darkness truly set in. "We won't be any good against an attack if we can't keep our eyes open."

"Then get some sleep," Bellamy replied tightly. He'd taken over driving several hours back from Monty, who was asleep in the passenger seat, his head resting against the blood-stained bandage on his shoulder. "The Grounders aren't going to stop until they find Clarke and neither should we if we're going to find her first."

* * *

It started to rain during the night: harsh, driving rain that soaked Clarke and plastered her hair to her scalp. Lightning sparked overhead, followed by crashing thunder. The only shelter for miles was the tall, narrow-trunked trees of the Ice Nation forest, and so her captors pressed on through the storm.

Clarke kept her head down, chunks of soggy hair falling into her eyes and sticking to her cheeks. Her clothes weighted her down and she could feel more than one blister forming on her feet.

Hours passed.

Wind whipped up and shook the trees, sending a cascade of broken branches and needles and leaves onto their heads. The rain was a torrent now, battering Clarke's face with sharp, icy fingers.

"We need to stop!" she finally yelled, planting her feet in the soggy ground. Brushing her hair out of her face, she looked up at the tall Grounder as he turned towards her, his two companions instantly flanking her.

"Is Wanheda afraid of a little storm?" the Grounder scoffed.

"Listen to me!" she said, screaming over the sound of the wind. The trees creaked and groaned, large branches now crashing to the ground. "It doesn't matter what the hell you believe about me right now, okay? I'm just trying to save our lives!"

The leader laughed and turned away-

-right as a tree snapped in the wind and crushed the Grounder on Clarke's left.

The impact of the tree's fall sent them all sprawling, and Clarke rolled away from the trunk, blinking frantically against the rain. Lightning flashed again, glinting off a fallen knife a pace from her foot, and she instantly dove for it.

Just as her fingers wrapped around the smooth bone handle, a body tackled her from behind. Clarke squirmed and twisted to the side, kicking at the Grounder. He cursed and elbowed her face before he grabbed for her wrists, but she was too fast.

Her hands came up and his eyes widened as she plunged the knife into his chest, twisting the handle to sink it in. Blood bubbled out as the Grounder gasped, thick and warm, coating Clarke's hands.

Pushing the dying man away, she sat up and, gripping the knife handle between her feet, cut away the rawhide around her wrists. Freed, Clarke stumbled to her feet, knife at the ready in her right hand.

Lightning illuminated the tall Grounder next to the fallen tree as he struggled to free his left leg from a tangled pile of branches. He looked up and as their eyes met, Clarke saw a flash of fear in his dark eyes.

For one moment she looked the part of the Wanheda: bloody knife in hand, blood trickling from her split lip and spilling down her chin.

And then she turned and ran into the storm.

Clarke ran until she couldn't, and still she struggled on into the hurricane. Lightning lit her way in intermittent glimpses of the forest around her as she ran through bushes that tore at her clothes and slogged through storm-swollen creeks. She slipped so many times she lost count, and soon she was covered in thick mud. But each time she fell, she pushed herself to her feet and kept going into the raging deluge. This storm was her chance at freedom and she wasn't going to waste it.

Suddenly, Clarke tripped and fell into the dark. She tumbled head over heels, her limbs encountering various mystery obstacles until she crashed to a stop.

She gasped for air, but there was none in her lungs. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears, throbbing through her aching body. Her eyes stung with heat as tears slipped down her cheeks to mingle with the rain. She felt like screaming.

But all Clarke did was close her eyes.

* * *

Bellamy stared at their vehicle, arms crossed. His jacket was damp and clung uncomfortably to his skin, but that was the least of his worries right now. Their vehicle's solar powered battery had died in the storm last night, leaving them stranded on foot deep in hostile territory.

"I would radio Arkadia," Monty was saying, "but seeing as we're out of range, that's not going to do anything."

"We should turn back," Indra said to Bellamy. "Wanheda has escaped the bounty on her head for three months–"

" _Clarke_ ," Bellamy interrupted, and Indra stared daggers at him. "Her name is Clarke. Your people may call her something else, but that's not who she is. Not to us."

 _Not to me._

"Indra's right," Kane spoke up, placing a hand on Bellamy's shoulder. "We're stuck in the middle of the territory of a clan who wouldn't think twice about killing us. If we want to help Clarke, we need to retreat and come back with reinforcements."

"Yeah, but is that what she'd do?" Monty said, all eyes suddenly focusing on him. He shrugged and then winced when the movement aggravated his wound. "Clarke never gave up on us, no matter what. The whole reason she's this Wanheda person is because she didn't give up, she did whatever it took to make sure we were safe."

Indra looked away, clenching her jaw. Kane looked at the ground, scratching the back of his head. Bellamy straightened and glanced at the soggy forest around them.

He couldn't shake the feeling that Clarke was in more danger than everyone thought or said she was, felt it deep in his gut. And how could he turn his back on her after everything she'd done for him, including saving his life more than once?

"Monty's right," he said, shouldering the strap of his gun and grabbing a survival pack from the back of the vehicle.

"Bellamy–" Kane started.

"I'm not going back," he said, buckling the straps of the pack over his shoulders, "but you should. Monty's shoulder needs Abby's attention, and you're the best chance at peace we've got without Clarke. We've got a better chance of our search for her staying silent if it's just one of us on foot."

"But how will you explain this?" Indra pointed at their dead vehicle. "This is Skaikru."

"That was one hell of a storm last night," Bellamy said with a shrug. "You got lost, the magic that makes it run escaped . . . make something up."

He felt Kane's eyes on him, judging and analyzing his decisions, but Bellamy didn't give a damn about what the Chancellor's second-in-command thought right now. He'd made his choice.

And of all of them except Indra, who didn't give a damn about Clarke, Bellamy had the best chance of navigating Grounder territory on his own. Thanks to Octavia and Lincoln, he had a pretty good grasp of the Trikru language.

"Wait," Kane said.

Bellamy glanced over his shoulder. "Yeah?"

"Just . . ." Kane paused, obviously searching for the right words. "Be careful. The truce is fragile enough without this whole Wanheda business." He grinned wryly. "So try not to start a war."

"You too," Bellamy said, and then plunged into the woods.

* * *

Clarke dreamed of her cell on the Ark, but instead of trees and skies and stars, she drew the faces of the children in Mount Weather. She drew them as she had known them: blistered and silent.

She kept drawing even as her fingers dripped blood and showed bone. She kept drawing as she sobbed and begged to stop, to make the pain leave. She kept drawing even when her hands were gone and all that were left were bloody stumps that smeared the red of her shame across the Ark walls.

Clarke woke up with a strangled scream that never made it out of her throat. Her chest heaved as she gasped for air, blinking against the sudden brightness of the sun overhead. She rolled onto her side and inspected her surroundings: green ferns, moss-draped stones, general debris blown down by the storm.

She'd slept through the storm.

Clarke sat up . . . and then realized she just couldn't. She was too weak. Her muscles tightened and tried, but there wasn't enough energy in her body.

She'd escaped only to end up at the bottom of a ditch, feverish and weak.

* * *

He found the two dead Grounders an hour or so later, one of them crushed under a fallen tree, the other stabbed in the chest. The rain had washed any leading signs away, but Bellamy suspected Clarke had had a hand in this . . . unless the Ice Nation was squabbling amongst themselves.

But Bellamy had never been one for wishful thinking.

* * *

The day dragged on, each minute like an hour to Clarke. She was burning now, every synapse in her brain on fire. She craved water, her mouth parched dry.

Night fell, cold and windy.

Clarke curled in on herself, clutching her ripped and damp clothing about herself in a feeble attempt to try and stay warm.

And as the walls around her emotions crumbled and fell, as her mind wandered, she found herself thinking about Bellamy. His was the last face from the Ark that she had seen, the person she had only realized then that was the hardest to leave behind.

Her confusion and guilt were still at war, still keeping her from the people she had become the Grounder's Wanheda to save. She'd done the right thing, hadn't she?

But the one thing Clarke knew that true on the ground, was that the lines between right and wrong were impossible to draw.

* * *

Bellamy stopped at the edge of a steep ditch. He'd barely escaped falling into it in the dark, and he took the pause it had given him in his search to catch his breath. He was tired, but he was driven. He couldn't truly rest or relax until he knew Clarke was safe.

Holding onto the trunk of a tree, he leaned over the edge of the ditch and looked down, trying to see how deep it was. And that's when he saw the body sprawled at least thirty feet down, with a halo of blonde hair.

Clarke.

"No," Bellamy murmured, the world narrowing to only the sight of Clarke's silent form. "Oh God, _no!_ "

He started down into the ditch, grasping for balance and support at the flimsy bushes and fallen branches as he half-stumbled, half-ran towards the girl who meant as much to him as his sister Octavia. The only other person who could see past and break down his walls so, so easily… something no girl, not even Gena, was able to do to him.

When he reached Clarke and brushed the hair aside from her face, she stirred weakly, a soft whimper slipping past her chapped lips.

Bellamy let out an explosive breath of relief.

"You sure gave me a scare there, princess," he muttered, looking around. There was no way he was going to get her out of here on his own, not unless help came or she was able to walk, which guessing on the fact that she was still in this ditch, he knew she wasn't in the condition.

"Bellamy?" Clarke's voice was soft, too soft.

"Yeah, it's me," he said, focusing on her once more.

She laughed, but it came out as a raspy cough. She tried to say something, but it was too faint for him to catch. And when he touched her head again, he felt the abnormal heat of her skin.

"Shit," he growled, shedding his pack and gun as he looked around for a suitable spot the two of them could shelter from the steadily dropping temperatures that, until now, hadn't mattered that much to him.

Scooping Clarke's limp, feverish form into his arms, Bellamy headed towards a thick patch of bushes, almost thick enough to be called trees.

* * *

Clarke knew she was dreaming. Where else would Bellamy be?

But as her fever burned and what was impossible mixed with her reality, scattering her thoughts, he didn't leave. He stayed with her, wrapping his jacket around her and holding her in his warm arms, his heartbeat drumming in her ears.

And when light began to filter down from the sky, as Clarke's mind and fever began to clear, she realized it wasn't a dream. It was oh-so-real. Bellamy was there and her head was tucked under his chin and against his chest, and his Guard jacket wrapped snugly around her. When she stirred, he shifted to hold her closer against him with a sigh.

Clarke closed her eyes, basking in the presence of someone she absolutely trusted, no matter what other tangled emotions he brought into being inside her battered heart.


	2. A Common Weakness

Bellamy limped beside Monty, teeth gritted against both the pain from the wound in his leg and the ache of frustration that sat as hard lump in his chest. He'd been so close to Clarke just to fail her in the end.

He hadn't been able to save her.

No matter what, things always narrowed down to something he did; a mistake that haunted him, lurking around every corner of his thoughts.

"Hey. Stop beating yourself up," Monty hissed, yanking Bellamy out of his depressed and admittedly self-blame. "If the Grounder wanted to kill her he would have by now."

"I know," Bellamy muttered, not meeting Monty's concerned face. He'd let his worry blind him, he'd given up their element of surprise. "I still screwed up, was too damn impatient."

And now the Grounder knew the weakness that Bellamy and Clarke shared: they'd do anything to keep the other alive.

* * *

Clarke raged the entire way from Lexa's throne room to the room the two Grounder guards took her to, another prison. Alternating between angry shouts and threats at Lexa, Clarke spun away from the guards when they released her and bared her teeth.

"Tell your _commander_ she's going to have to watch me every moment if she wants me to stay here," she snarled.

The guards didn't reply, didn't even twitch a facial muscle. But Clarke saw in their eyes that she scared them. Good.

When the door was shut and locked behind her, she walked over to the high, narrow sort of window and stretched up on her toes to peer out.

Her breath rushed out in a surprised gasp; she knew the bounty hunter Roan had brought her somewhere high, but she'd never imagined just how high this building was. It was a relic of Earth's glorious past, one of the few remaining skyscrapers.

And Clarke was at the top.

* * *

Kane brought their group to a stop an hour later in a cluster of trees. Pike stood nearby, his dark face stony. He and Kane had been arguing about how to handle the Ice Nation threat, and while Kane was going to keep the treaty as best he could, Pike saw all Grounders as threats. Bellamy wasn't thinking about the treaty much, but he knew that if Pike kept his current mindset, the Ice Nation soon wouldn't be the only threat to the peace treaty.

"Why are we stopping?" he asked, switching from leaning on Monty to a tree. Pain rolled up and down his leg in sharp waves, but Bellamy didn't care. It wasn't an extremely threatening wound, and all that mattered was getting Clarke and making sure she was safe.

"Because you can't keep doing this to yourself," Kane said, shouldering his gun and walking towards him. "You're losing blood, Bellamy. You won't be any good to Clarke if you're dead."

"Tell me something I don't know," Bellamy shot back tersely, but it was through gritted teeth. He closed his eyes momentarily and then straightened, clenching his jaw against the pain. "They can't be that far; I wasn't knocked out very long, and they have to avoid the Ice Nation army too."

"Whatever," Monty said, shrugging his pack off his shoulders. He looked up at Bellamy through his bangs, his features serious. "Kane's right, okay? Just… at least let me take a better look at that wound."

"You got this?" Monty's mom asked, confused. Bellamy knew what was going on her mind: last she knew her son was a fun-loving boy who got busted for sneaking drug plants out of the greenhouse.

That was almost a year ago. The ground had changed all of them into people they never dreamed they could be.

"Yeah," Monty replied, pulling fresh bandages out of his pack. "Jasper hasn't been doing too well last few months so I've ended up hanging around Abby a bit and I picked up some useful skills. I think."

"It doesn't have to look pretty," Bellamy reassured him as he settled into a seated position on the ground and stretched his wounded leg out. He growled as the movement pulled a different set of muscles and he felt blood trickle down his leg. "I'm not picky."

Half an hour later, Bellamy was able to walk on his own, even if he was slower than he'd like to be, and they set out again. In the woods around them they could hear the echoing rhythm of Ice Nation drums, a constant reminder of the trouble they all faced.

Bellamy wondered where Clarke was, if that bounty hunter trusted her to keep her word and at least removed that gag from her mouth. He remembered the way she'd looked at him when he'd been in front of her, the way her skin felt under his fingertips when he brushed her tangled hair away from her.

In that moment, despite the threat of Ice Nation and the fact that Clarke was still tied to a cement support, Bellamy had let his guard drop because she was there. All that had mattered was Clarke.

Of course, his intense focus on her had blinded him to the presence of the bounty hunter, enabling the Grounder to wound him. If Bellamy had just waited one more hour, if he'd cut Clarke loose and ran…

 _I'm not making the same mistake again._

* * *

Clarke paced the room. This was after she'd thoroughly searched it, but fur bedding and floor dust wasn't going to help her escape. If the building wasn't so impossibly tall she could have squeezed out the window, but she wasn't suicidal.

And now Bellamy was out there. Wounded, yes, but Clarke knew him and that he wouldn't give up. She'd never been so relieved to see someone when he appeared in front of her, knowing that he was real and not just in her dreams.

She should have warned him about Roan earlier, and her one moment of weakness had cost him. From the angle of the knife she knew that he would survive, but it wasn't an easy wound to recover from.

Footsteps by her door caused her to stop pacing, and a moment later Indra walked in alone.

The Trikru leader held up a hand to stop Clarke's prepared rant.

"I know you have reason to hate Lexa," she said, "but she saved your life. You would be dead if Roan brought you straight to his mother."

"I know," Clarke snapped. "But Indra, please. Bellamy–"

"Is looking for you, yes," Indra replied. She glanced at the closed door, and then said quietly, "I have already sent a runner to bring them here."

* * *

A Grounder walked towards them in the evening, hands held carefully away from his weapons. He was young, about Bellamy's age, with a shaved head and dark tattoos swirling across his eyes like war-paint.

"Indra sent me," he said as soon as he was within earshot. "She told me to bring you to Polis."

"To Lexa?" Bellamy snarled. "No way, that bitc–"

"Bellamy!" Kane said tersely, and then he turned to the runner. "How far?"

"Half a day," the Grounder replied, and then looked straight at Bellamy. A mocking smile curved at the corners of his mouth. "Your Wanheda is waiting."

* * *

Clarke jumped to her feet every time someone passed by her room. She'd asked to be let out, even stooping to the level of yelling for Lexa to face her, but her shouts were ignored.

The day ended and the night slipped by just as slowly. Clarke sat across from the door and dozed fitfully, her dreams a scattered chaotic mess of past events tangled with the hazy fictional things that lurked in the dark corners of her mind.

And then…

"Damn my leg!" Bellamy's frustrated voice, the one that once infuriated Clarke beyond words, was now the absolute best thing to hear. "Where is she?"

"Bellamy!" Clarke shouted, jumping to her feet and running to the door.

"Found her," she heard Kane say, followed by Monty's, "Clarke!"

"I'm over here!" she shouted, shaking the door, listening to the sound of their feet drawing closer.

And then the door swung open and Clarke stepped back, only to be enveloped by Bellamy's arms. She sagged against him with a soft sound of relief, tucking her head against his shoulder as she hugged him back just as fiercely.

Monty stood nearby, followed by Kane and oddly enough Officer Pike, her old survival skill trainer from the Ark. But all that mattered was Bellamy, that he was here and going nowhere soon.

He had become her greatest weakness, but he was also the one person who made her the strongest.


	3. A Moment To Breathe

It was raining, a thin drizzle that dripped from the tree branches and down the collar of Bellamy's jacket. He sniffed in mild annoyance as their little band continued through the forest that lay between them and Arkadia. At least he was still alive to feel the rain. And he was _on earth_ where rain fell, not trapped in a metal box.

Clarke strode ahead of him, her blonde hair lank and damp against her shoulders. She moved like a hurricane, this girl, barely stopping for food and rest. Bellamy knew why she was so focused, but Clarke had not been given any breaks in a long, long time. None of them had.

It wasn't too much to ask of the universe to give them at least one day of rest before the next big crisis, was it?

Clarke was miles past weariness. She was exhausted in so many different ways: physically, mentally . . . emotionally. Her fingers kept drifting to the pocket of her jacket where the Flame had been as a pitiful reminder of what she had lost. But it was gone now, gifted to King Roan as a peace offering and bargaining chip with the temperamental Azgeda.

Why couldn't those fools see all that she had done to help them, to help _all_ of them? If Clarke was another kind of person, she would have given up by now. She had gone through _so much_ and it weighed on her with an unforgettable, eternal burden. Yes, the past was the past and it could not hold her . . . but that did not erase its existence nor the problems that it brought for the future.

The future: once again a dark, terrible thing that she had to figure out some impossible way to conquer and survive.

Bellamy came from behind and fell in stride with her, his presence both a comfort and a reminder of all the debts she owed him. Despite their many, many mistakes and flaws, he had always been there for her. Always.

"We'll have to stop for the night," he said quietly. "Would Niylah take us in again?"

Clarke sighed, her step faltering for one almost imperceptible moment. There were so many details to think about all the time. Sometimes in moments like this, when her exhaustion was a physical ache deep inside her bones, she wished the crown of leadership was not hers to wear. That escape was as easy as closing her eyes . . . _NO_. That kind of thinking had been what gave Alie and her City of Light such appeal, because it was such a powerful temptation.

"We'd be as safe with her as we would be on our own," she finally replied, glancing at Bellamy's familiar and reassuring features. "Honestly, I really don't want to deal with any Grounders right now. Um" - she grimaced slightly, shaking her head - "no, I didn't really mean it like that. I just . . . I need some space."

"Understood," he said, his tone empathetic. He nodded firmly, a soldier's action.

Bellamy started to move forward.

"Wait," Clarke said without thinking, throwing a hand out to catch the sleeve of his Guard jacket. Her fingers dug into the damp material with an instinctive desperation that surprised her. "Stay. Please?"

Bellamy did not hesitate before he nodded, falling back in step with Clarke as they continued through the forest.

Even if nothing but silence lay between them, she needed Bellamy. She always had. And while the memory of Lexa was still a recent and bitter memory that she could not swallow, Bellamy had existed long before the Grounder Heda had for Clarke. She trusted him - implicitly.

* * *

They set up a skeleton camp a little past the halfway mark to Arkadia. They were close to the labyrinth of caves that Bellamy had sheltered in from the acid storms those first few days on the ground, just inside the edge of Skaikru's first-claimed territory.

The days of juvenile delinquents against the world seemed so long ago.

While the others gathered around their small fire, heating or eating whatever rations they'd brought or scavenged, he went over to Clarke. She was sitting a few feet outside the orange glow of firelight, her back to the rest of them as she looked out into the dark forest. The rain had finally stopped, but the scent of it hung heavy in the air and Bellamy's hair still clung damp and stringy against the back of his neck.

"Hey there," he said softly, crouching by Clarke. He'd kept an eye on her while he did his part of the camp setup and laid out the watch schedule, noting that she had slowly folded in on herself. She hadn't eaten yet, and so he held out the few strips of jerky he'd taken for her from his pack. "You're no good to anyone if you're half-dead from starvation."

She seemed to mentally shake herself out of whatever she'd been dwelling on and pushed away the strands of hair that had fallen into her face as she turned to him. The smile on her face was shallow and didn't touch her eyes, but he would take it.

"Thanks," she murmured, taking the jerky and biting off a healthy amount without a moment of hesitation.

Bellamy moved to sit next to her on the half-buried log. They ate together, passing his canteen between them to wash down the jerky. The inaudible conversation of the rest of their group was a distant murmur behind them; the nighttime sounds of the forest were a wild concert in front of them.

"We're not far from the car," Clarke finally said. "It was where Wells, Finn, and I sheltered from that first bad acid storm, the one we found Adam after. I think . . . " - she huffed a humorless laugh - "I think we left that old bottle of whiskey in there, still unfinished."

"Are you asking me out for a drink, princess?" Bellamy drawled, unable to resist the opportunity.

Clarke looked over at his teasing response, her smile now glinting in her eyes.

"I guess so." She got to her feet and jerked her chin in the direction of the forest. "C'mon."

"One sec," he muttered, walking back to the fire.

He really didn't _want_ to broadcast the fact that he and Clarke were going off into the woods, but he wasn't stupid. They couldn't just disappear on their people. Too many things could happen to be that careless.

"Clarke and I are checking something out," he told Jaha, who sat calmly by himself, staring pensively into the dancing flames of the fire. "We should be back in couple hours at the most. If you need anything" - he tapped the walkie-talkie on his belt - "you can radio me. Got it?"

Jaha looked up at him, his dark brown eyes eerily clear and seemingly untainted by all the horrors he'd brought about as the prophet of Alie. It was as if the man was not truly haunted by anything, not anymore. At least not like the rest of them. Bellamy didn't really hate the once-Chancellor, but he held him no loyalty either.

"I understand, Mister Blake," Jaha said pleasantly, almost tonelessly. Or so Bellamy imagined. "Thank you for the notification."

Bellamy nodded curtly, and then turned on his heel and strode back to Clarke, who was standing with a strange little smile on her face as she looked back at Jaha. It mirrored Bellamy's thoughts, on how no matter what Jaha did or who he was, he still carried the demeanor of a Chancellor with him. Even the way he had thanked Bellamy just then echoed of power and control, although quite probably without meaning to. It still felt off, though, bringing back memories of the days on the Ark when Jaha's word was law.

"All right, lead the way," Bellamy said, adjusting the strap of his rifle slung over his shoulder. Guns were still the powerful advantage Skaikru had against the Grounders and Bellamy would be damned before he went out without his weapons, peace treaty or not.

* * *

It took some wandering about before Clarke's boots thumped hollowly on the metal side of the buried vehicle, springy green moss clinging to the rusting frame. She opened the door to the cramped space with a cringingly loud screech of metal on metal, and then peered into the dark interior. She was long past squeamishness of any sort, but the sudden thought of spider-infested skeletons crossed her mind. Like she would somehow  
skip back into an alternate past where she, Finn, and Wells had perished here and she was a ghost revisiting the site of her death.

As if sensing her momentary fears, Bellamy unhooked a flashlight from his belt and crouched next to her, shining the white beam into the vehicle. Nothing but peeling seats, dirt, and cobwebs met their searching gazes . . . as well as the discarded bottle of whiskey with an inch or so of amber liquor remaining.

"Booze in an abandoned car," Bellamy muttered, dark amusement in his voice. "You sure know how to party."

"Oh, shut up," Clarke shot back lightly, glad for the distraction of light-hearted banter.

Wasn't this what she wanted? A time to just forget, even if only for an hour? Why did it still feel so . . . so fake?

The whiskey would help.

She jumped down into the small space, shuffling over to make room for Bellamy as he followed after her. He closed the door instinctively, acting on the survival habits of security. The glow of the flashlight illuminated the inside of the vehicle in stark shades of black and white where he set it down next to him, the edges of the seats and the delicate lines of the cobwebs outlined sharply.

Clarke picked up the dusty bottle and stared at the contents, swirling them gently and watching the light glint through the hazy glass. Sitting here was almost like traveling back in time, and she half-expected to hear the deadly whisper of acid overhead or smell its acrid scent. She glanced to her left where she'd been last time, full of bitter anger and struggling with the new burden of leadership.

And then, suddenly, she started laughing. It was uncontrollable, painful gasps that yanked themselves up from her stomach and out her mouth in short, barking sounds. She heard herself echoed back from the walls, ringing in her ears and her head.

She sounded crazy.

Still laughing, though now it felt more like sobs and tears hovered in stinging blurs at the corners of her eyes, Clarke opened the bottle. She took a long, deep swig of the thin, burning alcohol and swallowed hard, feeling the heat of it pour down her throat and into her stomach. It was a good sensation, promising escape

"I really want to get drunk right now," she told Bellamy, following this half-giggled statement with another gulp from the bottle. She found his eyes, warm and real and _there_ , and smiled bitterly. "But I also hate myself for wanting that."

Another gulp - the bottle was almost empty now. God, had she almost drank the whole thing? What great self-control she had.

"Okay," Bellamy said, unslinging his rifle. He shifted into a seated position, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He pulled the bottle from her limp fingers and lifted to his mouth, wincing slightly as he swallowed. "Wow, this is some strong stuff."

"It should be," Clarke said, shifting into a more comfortable position against the rotting seat behind her. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, warmth thrumming through her veins. "It's been aging for a hundred years."

Bellamy snorted, and she heard the slosh of liquid in the bottle as he took another drink. Clarke cracked her eyes open, their gazes meeting. It was an easy, familiar thing to look at Bellamy. She felt so sure and strong whenever he would meet her glances or she would find him looking at her.

"Are you doing okay?" Bellamy said, breaking the thick silence between them. He passed the bottle back to her, and she took a shallow sip from it as she mulled over her reply, though Clarke didn't think that she really needed to speak for him to understand.

"I'm tired," she finally admitted, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. She rolled the cool, gritty glass of the bottle between her palms, watching the remaining liquid tumble and splash about. "I want to be selfish, but I can't . . . which is a good thing. I . . . " - she gulped back tears, her voice breaking momentarily - "I keep losing the ones I love. I miss them. I miss . . . oh, _God_ , I miss feeling happy." She looked at Bellamy, his features blurring under a sudden sheen of hot tears. "Do you remember the last time you were really, truly happy?"

"It was a long time ago," he said.

"Were you ever happy here on the ground?"

He frowned, scratching a hand through his lovely mess of hair. Clarke had wanted to run her fingers through those thick curls for a long time, now - ever since that night she'd crawled out of the bunker they'd gotten their first guns from and found him muddied and broken, like a lost boy instead of the fearless rebel. She still wasn't sure what to label her feelings for Bellamy as. All she knew was that his death would be the one loss to break her.

* * *

Real happiness was a foreign emotion to Bellamy. There were times that he'd been happy, yes, but never completely at ease or joyful. There was always _something_ on his mind, a shadow to mar the would-be sunlight. And Clarke's question of if he'd ever been happy on the ground was a tough one to answer.

He'd been happy the day he'd recieved his pardon from Jaha when he was the Chancellor, but that was overshadowed by the looming danger of the Grounders. He'd been happy when they'd rescued their people from Mount Weather, but that was overshadowed by what they'd had to do to bring that about . . . and then by Clarke's sudden departure. He'd been happy with Gina, but not knowing if Clarke was safe or not overshadowed and blocked any chance of truly loving her; but if Bellamy was honest with himself, Gina was an unconcious replacement for the girl he really wanted. He'd been happy when they defeated Alie, but that was quickly overshadowed by the countdown to worldwide death.

The question he now found himself faced with instead was just as hard to answer: would he ever be truly happy?

"I really don't remember," he finally admitted, looking away and picking at a loose scrap of rotting fabric on the seat in front of him.

"Yeah," Clarke murmured.

A few moments later, Bellamy shook himself and stretched as best he could in the cramped space. How three people had fit in here and stayed overnight must have been hell, though he assumed the whiskey had helped.

"No, I don't want to go," Clarke protested with a slightly slurred voice, reaching out and touching his shoulder. "Not yet. I . . . It's horrible, but I can pretend everything is okay right now and I don't want to leave that. Not yet."

He couldn't say no.

So they stayed, the air growing hot and musty with each passing minute. Bellamy turned the flashlight off to conserve the battery, and then emptied the bottle of whiskey sometime after that. His veins were warm and buzzing with the alcohol, his thoughts blurry enough to push away the sharper edges of his worries for just a moment. It was easy to understand why Clarke didn't want to leave. Right now, in the dark of this piece of history, they could shrug away their burdens and just be.

They deserved a moment to breathe.

"Maybe we'll find a big hidden rocket or something," he finally said, his mind inevitably drifting to the future they were hoping so desperately to find some way to escape. "Go back up into space and build a new Ark, wait the new apocalypse out like we did last time."

Clarke made an unintelligible sound in response, followed by the sound of her shifting her position again. Bellamy closed his eyes and told himself he'd take just five minutes . . .

* * *

Clarke woke up with her head pillowed on Bellamy's leg. Her mouth tasted like sand and her eyes were heavy as she struggled to lift them. The inside of the car was lit faintly by the graying light of predawn, the edges of everything softened in the dim.

When she lifted her head, Bellamy shifted and muttered something under his breath.

"Wha-" he groaned, cracking his eyes at her. Confusion played in varying degress across his features for a brief moment before he realized what had happened. "I guess Jaha didn't think to radio us back."

Clarke shifted into a sitting position, her muscles protesting against the odd position she'd slept in. She yawned and scrubbed a hand through her hair, feeling silly . . . but also the most rested since her nights in Polis. It was a strange feeling, like a half-forgotten memory.

"We're going to have some explaining to do," she started, thinking that there were very few reasons that people would think why she and Bellamy would have left camp without much explanation. That, or the camp had been attacked, which would explain the lack of communication from Jaha after the few hours they'd said they'd be back by had long passed . . .

Bellamy cut her off with a simple touch. He reached over and pulled her gently to him so that she was settled against him, her head resting in the space between his shoulder and his neck. His heartbeat thudded steady in her ear, and he held her loosely with a quiet affection that echoed in her bones, unspoken yet powerful in its silence.

"I don't want to go," he said, his voice rough with sleep. "Not yet."

She couldn't say no.


End file.
